December 09, 2011

The Gold Medal In Jargonomics

Congratulations to Sprint's CMO for winning The Ad Contrarian first Gold Medal in Jargonomics. He managed to cram a remarkable stinking, reeking heap of CMO double-talk into one sentence yesterday as he announced he had fired Goodby.

Before we get to the winning sentence, let's talk about the context. Apparently this ninny fell for the oldest agency gag in the book -- the "integrated network alliance." Publicis conned this rube into believing that by pulling in agencies from across their network and branding this hodgepodge "Team Sprint" they would be getting some extra-special double-secret agency goodness. This doesn't even pass the giggle test.

Anyone who's ever spent 15 minutes in one of these holding company fusterclucks knows that he'll get two weeks of smiley play-acting and then a lifetime of back-biting, petty jealousies, and internecine warfare.

But I digress...

And now, the winning entry:

"Team Sprint, a brand-dedicated agency ecosystem, provides an integrated, collaborative environment where the focus is on consumer needs today and in the future."

This guy is seriously demented. First of all, how do you write such mind-numbing bullshit and think anyone is going to believe you're anything but a clown? Then, how does he knows what Team Sprint "provides?" It doesn't even exist yet.

He has written what is essentially a PR release for the agency that, if the agency had written it, would get them laughed out of any self-respecting bar in America.

Here's how our judges scored him:

10 points for "ecosystem"

10 points for "collaborative"

9 points for "brand-dedicated"

9 points for "integrated"

8 points for "environment"

5 points for "today and in the future"

That's 51 points in one sentence. A very impressive performance.

I'm sure there are CMO jargonistas all over the world seething with envy.

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Shakespeare was a storyteller. You're a copywriter.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business requires sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."